We’re officially into June and must take an honest look at who’s playing well, who’s playing poorly, and who we can truly count on to help us out through the long summer months ahead.
With that, the waiver wire has been picked over and it’s getting more difficult to find impact players readily available in most leagues. Fear not, because there are still a handful of available players that have the chance to be difference makers in both the short and long term.
Roman Anthony makes a big jump after getting the call to Boston, and CES returns to the rankings.
Here are three players that are under 40% rostered on Yahoo leagues that you should strongly consider adding.
If you want a larger list, Eric Samulski wrote his extended waiver wire piece on Sunday.
Ronny Mauricio, 2B Mets
(16% Rostered on Yahoo)
Mauricio made his triumphant return to the big leagues last week after a torn ACL he suffered in December 2023 and ensuing complications with its recovery.
He was promoted to replace the injured Mark Vientos and we got to experience all of the highs and lows which make him one of baseball’s more tantalizing prospects in just five games of action.
First, he went 0-for-11 through his first two-plus games with a chase rate that approached 50%. The worst of which was a strikeout with the bases loaded and two outs when the Mets trailed the Rockies 1-0 in the sixth inning on Friday night. He was set down on just three pitches after looking at two curveballs in the zone and then chasing one low and out of it.
Opposing pitchers were preying on his aggressiveness and he helped them out by swinging at virtually every breaking ball he saw diving in the dirt.
Then, he hit a towering shot in his next at-bat on Friday to break his mini-slump. It traveled an estimated 409 feet at 104.5 mph and ironically, would’ve been a home run in every park except Coors Field.
Still, it seemed like that double helped him ease in because he went 4-for-7 over the final two games of that series with two stolen bases, two walks, two runs scored, and one of the longest home runs you’re ever going to see.
This stretch is a great encapsulation of what we can expect from Mauricio: nutty physical tools leading to red-hot stretches interwoven with what will likely be some of the worst swing decisions in the league that could dramatically hurt his production.
Mauricio, Brett Baty, and Luisangel Acuña are fighting for one full starting spot – third base – and partial shares of two others – second base and designated hitter. Jeff McNeil splits time between second and outfield while Starling Marte starts at DH against lefties and has hit well there of late.
All three of these young players have flashed without maintaining consistency. Also, all three have one minor league option remaining. The only one who doesn’t is Vientos, who’d fallen into a part-time role over the last few weeks because of struggles both at the plate and in the field.
With so much competition and the Mets trying to sort out who can be trusted in a pennant race, this battle will likely come down to a pure meritocracy. Whoever is playing the best will get the most reps. Whoever struggles will almost definitely head back to the minor leagues when Vientos and Jesse Winker eventually get healthy.
This all makes Mauricio a serious boom or bust candidate. The boom is so great though that he’s worth grabbing in most 12-team leagues just in case it clicks.
Ben Brown, SP Cubs
(21% Rostered on Yahoo)
Brown has begun to show signs of a breakout after a horrible start to his season.
Through the end of April, he had a 6.04 ERA across 25 1/3 innings. He struggled to put hitters away with an 11.1% walk rate and couldn’t suppress hard contact. Also, Brown fell victim to a bit of bad luck with an unsustainable .413 BABIP against him to this point.
Through these struggles, his stuff rebounded well after an injury-riddled 2024 season and some questions as to whether he’d be in the rotation or bullpen. His fastball still sits around 96 mph and his power-curve forces plenty of whiffs from both left and right-handed batters.
A predominantly two-pitch mix isn’t ideal, but those two could yield better results than they had.
He still has an ugly 4.93 ERA over 38 1/3 innings since May began. Yet, everything happening under the hood is encouraging.
He’s walked one or no batters in five of his last seven starts and has just a 3.8% walk rate over that stretch. His strikeout rate has also climbed to 30.1%. The only pitchers with a higher K-BB% since the start of May are Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet. That’s good company for Brown.
Some of this turnaround is his bad luck regressing. Another huge part has been his schedule.
During that rough April, Brown faced the Phillies, Diamondbacks, Padres, Dodgers twice, and Athletics in Sacramento. Since, he’s seen the Brewers, Giants, Tigers, and each of the Reds and Marlins twice. He went from a true gauntlet to one of the easiest stretches a pitcher will ever see.
The last piece of his resurgence is an increased willingness to throw his changeup against lefties. They saw it just 4.8% of the time in April and then 8.5% in May. He just made his first start of June against a talented Tigers’ lineup that featured five lefties and its usage was up to 15.3%.
While the pitch lacks consistency in both movement and command, it could help him to just literally show a third pitch.
He needs to cross that hurdle against righties, too. On the season, Brown is throwing his fastball 59.0% of the time against them. It’s allowed a .443 slugging percentage and forced just an 11.1% whiff rate. There’s nowhere to hide that pitch when the only other option is his curve.
Despite some obvious flaws, it’s difficult to ignore how many batters he’s striking out compared to how few he’s walking.
As the first chunk of his schedule was difficult and the second easy, this third portion will be somewhere in the middle with scheduled matchups against Phillies, Brewers, Mariners, Astros, and Guardians coming up.
It’s worth rostering him through the beginning of this stretch to see if a real step forward is happening here.
Jeff McNeil, 2B/OF Mets
(5% Rostered on Yahoo)
Another Met and by far a more stable option than Mauricio, McNeil is not getting the respect he deserves league wide for what’s been a prolonged productive stretch at the plate.
He regressed dramatically after winning the batting title in 2022 with a .257 average and .703 OPS in 285 games across the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
That near league-average statline hides the fact that during the first half last season, he had just a .216 average and .590 OPS. It felt like his days of being a highly productive hitter were over.
Since McNeil’s batting title, the shift had been outlawed. He was famous for reading the defense like a quarterback and shooting the ball through whichever hole he wanted to with his incredible bat control. Without it, he seemed a bit lost and unsure how to approach his at-bats.
Then, something seemed to click during the second half last season before a hit-by-pitch that fractured his hand ended his season in September. He missed the Mets’ magical playoff run then strained his oblique this spring, further delaying his return.
Now he’s back and has continued to hit well. In 76 games since the All-Star break last season, he has a .275/.366/.541 slash line with 13 home runs.
That power is the most surprising element of McNeil’s game. His career-high in home runs is 23 set back in 2019, a season where basically all power production should be taken with a grain of salt. Otherwise, his last two seasons are the only other times he’s reached double digits with 10 and 12 homers respectively.
His bat speed is in the bottom third of the league and his average exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard hit rate are also low, so he was not exactly due for more power. However, he’s up to six already this season in just over a month of play.
While still low, his bat speed is up two full ticks from 68.8 mph to 70.7 mph compared to last season. That helps. Also, he’s near the top of the league in pulled fly ball rate at 29.5%. He’s now pulled a higher rate of his fly balls for four straight seasons dating back to that batting title and his identity crisis.
McNeil has made these adjustments while maintaining his usually high contact rate and continuing to be a pest in the batter’s box. He has the highest rate of foul balls this season for any hitter that’s seen at least 400 pitches and by far the lowest chase rate of his career. That’s led to him walking more than he’s struck out so far.
Plain and simple, he’s a tough hitter to face. Add that to him increasing his power output and still starting everyday – with some reps even coming in center field – in a talented Mets lineup, he’s a great option at the bottom of your rosters.
Matthew Pouliot
